Life Coach

Greg Behrendt is a comedian who puts life-coach lessons in his humor. In between his rants of puzzlement at the ridiculousness of life and human behavior, he spouts advice: on job fulfillment (how to rock at your job whether you are an actual rock star or a bank manager) and building relationships with friends (instead of making a sign for your favorite celebrity or singer, make one for your friend Dan the Drywaller for that great wall he built). He even turned his relationship book, "He's...

Why did you do it?" The movie opens with that question. In response, Jayson Blair makes a joke. "This one again," he mutters, rolling his eyes in mock consternation at the predictability of it. But predictable as it is and as long as he's had to ponder it, Blair still ends up punting. "I don't have a good answer for the question," he acknowledges. "A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power and Jayson Blair at the New York Times" -- it premieres this week on PBS; check your local...

As a single mother of three, Deborah Gaines was working long hours at corporate jobs, and she was having a hard time balancing her limited home life with her career. "As the family breadwinner, I needed that corporate salary, but I also needed more flexibility than most corporate jobs allow," the New Jersey woman said. So she turned to a life coach billed as a career transitions coach. "My life coach led me to a very successful career as a consultant during those transitional years...

As a single mother of three, Deborah Gaines was working long hours at corporate jobs, and she was having a hard time balancing her limited home life with her career. "As the family breadwinner, I needed that corporate salary, but I also needed more flexibility than most corporate jobs allow," the New Jersey woman said. So she turned to a life coach billed as a career transitions coach. "My life coach led me to a very successful career as a consultant during those transitional years...

Let's just get this out of the way now: You can't get rid of fear or pain but you can minimize it, control it and even use it to create your best life possible with a little practice. If you are in perpetual fear or are avoiding the one thing that terrifies you, there is relief. The solution, however, is counter to what you probably have been doing. Is your fear holding you back at work? Are you afraid of giving a speech? Of stepping up and taking more responsibility? Of raising your...

As an airline pilot flying cargo, Steve York, 49, can sometimes fly through 30 time zones in a week. From Chicago, he can fly to Asia and then Africa. There he'll remember he has homework to complete. Not long ago, York started thinking about what he'll do once he retires and he's not flying anymore. Maybe teach, he thought. Certainly research. With a knack for history and U.S. policy, York decided in 2010 to pursue an advanced degree. In February, York received his master's...

The NSFW trailer above is for the upcoming season of Oxygen's "Bad Girls Club: Chicago" - or as I like to call it, “Bad Girls Club: Highland Park.” It features seven women with strong personalities living together for three months in a mansion, surprisingly located in the affluent and somewhat haughty North Shore suburb of Highland Park. Like past seasons of “Bad Girls Club,” the drama-filled “Chicago” season will be heavy on shouting, cursing, punching,...

The NSFW trailer above is for the upcoming season of Oxygen's "Bad Girls Club: Chicago" - or as I like to call it, “Bad Girls Club: Highland Park.” It features seven women with strong personalities living together for three months in a mansion, surprisingly located in the affluent and somewhat haughty North Shore suburb of Highland Park. Like past seasons of “Bad Girls Club,” the drama-filled “Chicago” season will be heavy on shouting, cursing, punching,...

If your world seems chaotic and maddening, or you simply feel stuck in the proverbial rut, a life coach may be the answer. But what if you don't have the time or money to hire an inspirational guru ready to unleash the inner you with some deftly played mojo? Well, life coach Carol Stanton has the answer for you--in a box. "Life Coach in a Box" ($19.95 at Borders stores) includes a journal and a stack of cards featuring different themes (relationships, spirituality, work/career, recreation...

John Bongiorno did not become Maine West's boys basketball coach until mid-August, well after summer leagues and workouts had concluded. The big-picture goal was to build a program, but not at the expense of the 2013-14 season. "To put in a system top to bottom takes a while," Bongiorno said. "But I told the kids at the beginning of the season I wasn't going to give up the season as a transition year. Every kid deserves a great senior year, and we wanted to give...

Outspoken, humorous and a basketball tactician, coach Rick Majerus died Saturday night from a heart condition. He was 64. "No one saw the game like he saw it," said Loyola coach Porter Moser, a protege and former Majerus assistant at Saint Louis. "All of the people who will be talking about him, they didn't have the luxury of being in a room filled with dry erase boards and preparing for a game with Rick Majerus, watching him dissect how we're going to stop an opponent. He was a...

Lionsgate and CodeBlack will release the psychological thriller "Repentance," starring Forest Whitaker , in the U.S. on Feb. 28. Philippe Caland directed from the screenplay he wrote with Shintaro Shimosawa ("The Grudge"). Caland produced with Whitaker and his producing partner, Nina Yang Bongiovi under their production shingle Significant Productions. The film, which also stars Anthony Mackie and Mike Epps , is part of the multiyear distribution...

Teens in seventh through 12th grades now have their own gathering place at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. The Hub opened April 15 to 60 teens and features a large, enclosed gathering space with a contemporary design and modular furniture for teens to collaborate on homework assignments, work independently at computers, doodle on the paper tablet coffee tables, get their game on or just hang out. "We feel we can give them a chance to...

As far as Mondays at Halas Hall go, surely the Bears have experienced ones that sucked the life out of a football city more than the day after their 45-41 loss to the Redskins did. But none immediately come to mind. Rare is the occasion when an NFL team simultaneously announces its most valuable offensive and defensive players both will miss at least the next month because of injuries. Yet that was the Bears' grim reality coach Marc Trestman and general manager Phil Emery delivered with...

During the lone season Jerry Wainwright spent at Fresno State as an assistant basketball coach, he lived in a furnished apartment but never brought a car to California. Every day Wainwright walked three miles to campus and back, allowing him to stretch his mind as much as his legs. "Instead of being stuck in traffic, you had time to think about some things and work on your tan," Wainwright cracked Thursday. Each step Wainwright took felt farther away from home. His wife,...

Creating a life of possibilities in face of obstacles has been Glenview resident Diane S. Turner's mantra throughout the challenges life presented her, including the birth of her daughter. Born healthy, at 4 months Rebecca suffered seizures that left her with a pervasive developmental delay, which affected her reading, writing and computing skills. Despite her disabilities, Rebecca has overcome her obstacles and enjoys her...

You hire a personal trainer to make your body more efficient, so why not hire an expert to trim the flab from your lifestyle? That's the job of a life coach, a developing career track in which a paid consultant prods your progress in improving your life. "The coach helps the client set goals in the life-planning areas," explains Thomas Leonard, 40, a former financial planner and tax accountant and founder of Coach University, a phone training program boasting 1,000 current or graduated students.

Killing the fun notion that the Bears had hired a football facsimile of life coach Tony Robbins, Jay Cutler kidded that Marc Trestman has yet to ask him to fall blindly backward to prove he would catch the quarterback. "He hasn't said, 'Hey, this is a trust-building exercise with falls or anything like that,' " Cutler said Thursday at Halas Hall. "Just come to work every day and I've followed his lead. " Surprisingly, that becomes more obvious every time Cutler opens his...

I want a coach. Not a coach as in Cinderella's renovated pumpkin. Not a Coach as in a pricey shoulder bag. I want a coach like an Olympic coach. I want a coach to tune me up and calm me down, a coach to sigh for me and cry for me, a coach who'll rev me up to be all that I can be and take half the blame when I wind up bumbling through the triple lutz of life. I want a coach like Picabo Street's coach, a coach who when Street had an injured knee and wanted to scope out...

I'm a huge fan of riding a bike to work in the summer. I can't think of a simpler way to save money, help the environment and squeeze in a little exercise. It's funny, then, that I keep not doing it. It's sort of astonishing, really. I mean, I've actually never done it. This is a familiar feeling for me. Year after year, August arrives, and with it a flood of panic and remorse over all the things I've failed to do during the summer. Here it is two weeks before school...